Legends: Porsche 962 and 918 face off at Indy

It's sitting in the garage at Indy, under a dark and rain-filled sky, refusing to start. The grandstands are empty. Rivers of water sluice through the pits, and every roof gutter is overflowing comically, a miniature Niagara.

The starter cranks. Wharrrararrar, nothing.

One of the mechanics takes a knee. Another goes elbows-deep in the engine bay. A bystander strolls up.

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"What's wrong?"

"Fouled plugs."

A pile of used Bosch spark plugs builds on the ground next to the car. Tiny electrodes, the insulators glossy with fuel.

"Why?"

A sigh. The mechanic doesn't look up.

"It's . . . old."

The rain continues. Standing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway next to Porsche 962C number 003, my helmet bag on the table and no rain tires in sight, I can't process much over the sound of my own heartbeat. Except that one idea, which seems to freeze everything: Old?

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Here's the thing: the 962 is old. Old enough, if it were human, to have children and thinning hair and multiple mortgages. If you're over 25, this may come as a shock. The 962's career essentially ended in the early Nineties, but it was ubiquitous in sports- car racing for a decade prior. Porsche's 956, the 962's virtually identical predecessor, landed its first Le Mans win in 1982. You forget this is now an old car because endurance cars have looked like this since the first 956 was built, have used air in roughly the same way.

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The '85 962 seen here is one of the Rothmans-sponsored factory Le Mans cars. It took pole at La Sarthe in 1985 with Derek Bell and Hans-Joachim Stuck, won the race overall with the same guys (plus Al Holbert) a year later, and landed its last podium—a first place at Suzuka—in 1988. Some 176 956s and 962s were built from 1982 to 1991; combined, the two models won Le Mans seven times and gathered 232 victories in 12 years.

Derek Bell is now 73. He drove 956s and 962s professionally for a decade, but when we spoke last fall, he recalled only a few occasions where a car broke underneath him. "The answer I always got was, 'Herr Bell, every race we do must be a devehlop­ment for somezink, to joostifai our participation.' "

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Which brings us to the 887-hp, $848,000, carbon-fiber Porsche 918 Spyder hybrid. We brought the 918 to Indy for several reasons. First, Porsche was about to age its 918s out of the press fleet; the company offered us one last test car for something dramatic. Second, a friend of the magazine recently called, apropos of nothing, and asked if we wanted to test a Rothmans 962. (That this sort of thing actually happens remains one of the nutball wonders of the car-magazine business, and God help us if it ever stops.) And third, out of all the tracks near the 962's Ohio home, the only one that fit the schedule was the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. A place that could add drama to a bichon frise.

Sometimes the stars just line up.

In the 956-962, you have the first of the truly modern Porsche prototypes, a downforce giant so quick and durable that the factory teams won virtually everything they entered. The 918 looks like the 962 by way of Ridley Scott, is one of only three million-dollar hybrid supercars currently on sale, and will exist in just 918 examples when production ends later this year. We wanted to know if the state of the German-supercar art could pull numbers within reach of a family legend. But we also wanted to know what, 30 years on, that legend felt like in a mortal's hands.

Regarding that family: Our test 918, a blue development car with 5000 miles on the clock, was named Meredith. I learned this when I looked under the rear wing and saw that name in white, Comic Sans-like stickers. Turns out, Porsche occasionally names its R&D cars; the 918 fleet is all girls. Which probably says something about Stuttgart engineers, but I'll be damned if I know what.

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Stan Ross sold a Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa to buy his 962. "And the 250 TR was just terrible to drive," he says, watching the rain fall outside the garage. "Financially, it wasn't the smartest move. But this is a lot more fun."

Stan, 74, has an interesting definition of terrible, but then, I've never driven a 250 TR. He lives in Ohio. "I told him not to sell the TR," his 41-year-old son Malcolm says, laughing. "I think I've got him convinced to hang on to this."

Stan, a retired lawyer, smiles a lot and begins most stories with the words "funny story." They are all genuinely funny, even the one he tells about cancer. Both Malcolm and Stan came to Indy, along with Malcolm's two children, to see the 918 and 962 run. I am set to drive both of those cars today, but I have never been in a machine as potent as the 962. By Stan's entirely reasonable wishes, I won't drive it if it doesn't stop raining. There are no rain tires, only Goodyear slicks. The rain hammers down incessantly, as if it knows how much I hate it.

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Because magazine editors are not pro racing drivers, we often bring in professionals for data acquisition in big-dog stuff. For this, we called 2011 IndyCar rookie of the year and Indianapolis local James Hinchcliffe. Hinchcliffe shows up precisely at his call time of 9:00, comments on the rain, and then sits down, like the rest of us, to wait. He's charming, a polite, Canadian-born 28-year-old with a perma-grin. He learned to drive stick in his dad's Bugeye, he tells me, and he eyes the car with friendly optimism, as if it were an old relative he's yet to meet. I quickly decide that I like him, because unlike a lot of pro 'shoes, he is not a pretentious, condescending tool.

The morning creeps on. With little to do until the track dries, I get caught up in a discussion with Stan. He bought the 962 in 1994, after it had been owned by Australian driver Vern Schuppan. It was last exercised 12 years ago, when a Formula Atlantic driver lost brakes at Moroso, crashing into Stan, and the whole left side of the car went kablooey. Its current caretaker, Stan Yates, tells me the car was then rebuilt by a specialist. Which only serves to remind that there are some things so valuable they can't be destroyed, just reduced to a kit of thoroughly kablooeyed parts.

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Seen as one piece, those parts appear heavy-duty. The 962's enormous decklid forms most of the car's rear, covering steel tubes and an engine with its crankcase at shin height. When the lid is removed for the plug change, the act seems vaguely wrong, as if you were watching a giant hand yank the landing strip off the carrier Nimitz. Everything else seems almost mass production in terms of finish. (In the Eighties, a mechanic friend was allowed to examine a 956 and a Lancia LC2, one of the Porsche's competitors. The Lancia was perfect, he said, every piece beautiful, while the Porsche seemed full of Volkswagen parts, as if the same production engineers, even the same procurement guys, were told to build a Golf but, oh, make it faster.)

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Simplicity was the 962's métier. Its mechanical bits were tested endlessly so as to be reliable—the chief concern of an endurance racer—but for a 200-plus-mph prototype, the car reeks of easy maintenance. Body off, all you see is space, the exterior just bits of Kevlar scaffolded into the air. The 2.6-liter, twin-turbo, intercooled, four-valve flat-six produces 625 hp at 7735 rpm. It's related to Porsche's abortive IndyCar motor of the early Eighties, which was itself an offshoot of the company's 935 engines. In the era of carbon-fiber everything, the aluminum monocoque (Porsche's first) may not seem impressive, but neat touches abound: progressive springs of titanium for reduced mass, or the twin calipers at each front wheel, which helped minimize pit stops over 24 hours at Le Mans. (Non-Le Mans 962s used a lighter single- caliper setup.)

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And then there's the vibe. Any geek could tell you the 918 apes the proportions of the classic Porsche sports racers; a bit of 906, a little 550, some 917. The 962 carries roughly the same footprint and profile as a 918, though the older car looks far more wieldy. The microscopic cockpit, the wraparound windshield—you find yourself wondering how much of the 918 was demanded by the company's famous devotion to tradition and how much was simply building a car that let customers feel like they were going to Le Mans.

When the mechanics finally get the 962 running, it sounds like a Caterpillar with bad habits: valve thrash and mechanical fizz, all audible because the turbos mute the exhaust to a low snarl. The engine is warmed and then shut off. Shortly after, the rain lightens. Hinchcliffe is hurriedly installed in the 918 for familiarization laps. A Porsche engineering rep gives him a two-minute walk-through of the various driveline modes; Hinchcliffe gives a ride to one of Malcolm's kids, then returns.

"That thing's outta control," he says, laughing. "Super obnoxious. On a wet track, not running it out, 150 mph in a straight line. Which is all I want to do with an eight-year-old in the car." He heads back out for timed laps.

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Because Indy is basically a flat-bottomed bowl, every sound on the 2.4-mile interior road course is echoed with an unpredictable delay. The 918 catapults onto the front straight, ripping past start/finish with a gut-punching baroom and heat waves rippling off the engine cover. Its flat-crank, 9150-rpm, 4.6-liter V8, an outgrowth of Porsche's RS Spyder competition program, far out-yawps the 962's chirps and grunts. It also brings the added component of a hybrid's instant engine shutdown—when Hinchcliffe pulls back into the paddock, maneuvering solely with the car's electric motors, the bellow is cut off at the knees.

The sun briefly breaks through the clouds. The photo crew dithers, and my arms grow goose bumps. Yates introduces Hinchcliffe to the 962, an act that consists of little more than citing maximum boost (1.1 bar); noting the synchromesh, dogleg five-speed; and telling him to stay off the curbs, because the car's nose will explode and cause large sums of money to evaporate from various wallets.

"Remember," Yates says, "she's older than you and costs a lot more."

Hinchcliffe cackles a little under his helmet. He pulls onto the track, the mechanics pushing on the wing to ease clutch take-up. A minute later, the car spits back into view, flicking onto Indy's banked straight in a sharp snap, like an A-10 cracking out of formation to go ventilate a few tanks. A few laps later, when Hinchcliffe pits, he's sweating.

"The car's fun. Work, though. Midcorner speed feels comparable to the [current] Indy car. You can brake later with that one, obviously, but . . . fun."

Later in the day, road test editor Robin Warner will look at the data and tell us Hinchcliffe saw 170 mph before braking into the relatively tight Turn 1. Clouds reform overhead. The track is now dry.

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Yates waves at me casually. "Get ready."

I head off toward my gear bag. My toes twitch as I walk.

Strolling up to a purpose-built race car at the 105-year-old Indianapolis Motor Speedway in a helmet and Nomex might be the most disingenuous thing a professional writer can do. Gazing into Indy's stands from the front straight prompts shivers, the echoes of a place that's been taking lives since before the Titanic sank. The one thing common to humanity's ancient speed temples is how they all make you feel like a tourist.

"Anybody can get in a 962, start it up, and drive it away."

And then you're in the car, dropping feet-first through the tiny door opening, unfolding yourself inside like a ship in a bottle. You lose sight of the stands and the blue-and-white livery. You exhale, because it just seems like a car again. The windshield wraps around seemingly inches from your eyes, and the rubber-rimmed headlight switch on the dash looks like it was yanked from an old 911. I tighten my belts and look around, everyone watching, before remembering, Oh, right. I should start it.

Like most Porsche prototypes, a 962 starts with a key—in this case, a black- fobbed deal that could've come from a 924 or 928. The engine lights into a low rumble, barely audible through the ear-plugs I wear out of habit. You can touch the other side of the cockpit with an outstretched arm, so I do, unable to stifle the chuckle that follows. Everything seems disturbingly simple, as if more should be necessary to control the tool you're in, to keep it from slicing off your legs. That iconic windshield banner stares down at my lap, reversed: EHCSROP.

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"Anybody can get in a 962, start it up, and drive it away," Derek Bell told me. So I do. The clutch is light and relatively predictable. I ease out of the pits, the car choogling down the straight in its tall first gear.

". . . but that last few seconds," Bell went on, "is bloody difficult."

If there's a trick to fighting anxiety, I've never known it. I am suddenly, paralyzingly tentative. The car feels wide as a bus. The steering is light, strangely quiet, and remarkably slow—necessary, probably, at 230 mph—feedback only castering up on lock. Everything else fights back. The shifter is clunky and balky if you're nice to it. The brake pads warm slowly and cool too quickly. The engine's lag and long gearing is painful. Everything happens in slow motion.

Because I'm worried. Because I'm more than a little uneasy and intimidated by the car's value and history and livery and the place, oh Jesus, the place. Hands tremble. I forget to downshift for a chicane. And then . . .

Historical perspective can be too big to carry in a given moment. A lap passes, slow and uneventful. I catch sight of the apex curbing in a corner. It looks like any other apex curbing. I look down at my belts, at the leather-lined gloves I've used in a zillion other cars. I realize I'll have to get out soon and likely never get back in. And I think, Nut up. Pretend it's the world's weirdest mid­-engine Miata. A 918 with tented pants. Whatever it takes.

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Over the next few laps, I stop thinking too much, somehow tricking myself into believing that I'm strapped into anything else. And I relearn what every Porsche geek will tell you: The 962 is incredible.

The car lightens up as you press on it, but paradoxically, it also becomes far more work. You go from wrist-flicking the wheel to dialing it by degree with your shoulders. The shift gate seemingly narrows, the synchros almost sucking the lever into place, and the engine wakes up. A 10,000-rpm tach and 2.0-bar boost gauge live behind the wheel; Yates told me the car's natural red-line is 8000 rpm but asked that I shift around 7500, where the engine, midrangey and surprisingly flexible, is still trying to bore a hole in the horizon. On cam and boost, the tach needle surges, the wastegates chirp, you shift, and the fury repeats. There's monumental power, but the car is so stable and comfortable, it takes only a few laps before you focus on tires, not engine.

I drove a 935 and a 934 once, Porsche's earlier, 911-based turbo racing cars. Those things were happy Frankensteins, all violence and cross talk. Here, it's just big grip (1.69 g on the data) and so little drama at 160 mph that a voice in your head goes, Don't brake, you ass, you're barely moving. In a straight line, the chassis feels like a Camry in a parking lot.

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Stan Ross used to share his car with American Porsche legend Bob Akin; he told me that Akin agreed with him, that the 962 was easy to learn, to a point. The grip through the fastest chicane is enough that I have to retrain my hands to dart the car in properly—video from Hinchcliffe's laps will later show I'm still not doing it quickly enough, not trusting the car to stick. Similarly, Hinchcliffe noted that the 962 understeered a little coming onto the banking, and once, carrying enough speed out of the previous sweeper, I see it. The nose jacks, the steering loses a whisper of feel, and the car momentarily flick-washes up the track until the front tires come back. It occurs to me that (what I assume is) aero-loss understeer is a benign trait—and this was a benign moment—but the corollary, a blip of opposite lock at 200 mph on a wet Mulsanne straight . . .

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Part of me wants to chase that feeling; most of me doesn't.

Weeks after driving the car, I consulted interviews with various men who were paid to race these things. Each echoed one idea: Tootle around at 95 percent of a 962's ability, it's your pal— a high waterline for race cars, and one of the reasons the model worked so well for period privateers. But venture higher, it's adult territory. Mistakes equal Things Go Wrong.

Which once again brings us back to the 918. We've covered the car before and discussed how it drives, so the goal here was merely a data reference. But I took Meredith, our test Spyder, out for a few laps to check in.

Next to the 962, it's louder and looser, a drama bomb by design.

A few 918 bullet points: The laser-drilled engine cover costs as much as two unpainted 911 bodies. The first 0.5 g of brak- ing force comes from the hybrid system's energy recuperation. The rigid, near-vertical seatbacks are an acquired taste; the 962 feels similar, but the cockpit is more old-school Porsche, less self-consciously detailed. The front trunk is the size of a hand- bag, which is good, because there's nowhere else to stash one with someone in the passenger seat. Those who've driven the McLaren P1 and the LaFerrari—the other two exotic hybrids on sale—generally agree that the McLaren is the most spaceship- batty of the three, the Ferrari the most satisfyingly analog, and the 918 the middle child, a foot in each camp.

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That said, 60 mph appears in 2.5 seconds. Skidpad grip is 1.07 g. The soup-can exhausts jut out of the top of the car and yell 908-917-RS Spyder noises into space.

After his laps, Hinchcliffe noted that the all-wheel-drive 918 is a totally different car with stability control off, far more sideways on throttle and work to keep under you. He was right, of course. Next to the 962, it's louder and looser, a drama bomb by design. It feels like a caricature of a race car, the preference of which is a matter of taste. It's also more fatiguing to drive quickly, because fatigue is often fun with fast street cars, and the 962 is meant to be driven for 24 hours, by men who do not dick around, on the greatest asphalt in France.

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I'm not going to tell you that the two cars have a feel in common, or spout some cliché like "progress has brought this sharp pair closer than we thought." (Careful, Smith . . . —Ed.) Those things may be true, but anyone could've guessed that. Rather, as I drove out of Indy, I found myself obsessed with the contradiction of the modern Porsche personality—a slavish devotion to tradition coupled with an obsessive pursuit of the new. That mentality produced the glorious and ever-evolving 911, but you have to wonder if it's infinitely scalable.

When the Porsche marque was young, in the Fifties and Sixties, it did great, genuinely new things without the momentum of older work. This set it up to do further great things, evoking past achievements without being beholden to them, which is part of why people love Porsches. The 918, for all its advancement, shifts the scales a little. Countless pundits have asked why the car isn't lighter, more practical, or more surprisingly styled (read: less like Porsche's last supercar, the Carrera GT), or why its tech doesn't seem as futuristic as, say, the 959's did in the Eighties. Or the P1's and LaFerrari's do today.

The answers aren't immediately apparent, but you can't deny the validity of the questions. Or how, next to Porsche's other envelope-pushing home runs, the 918 seems merely a solid, quietly innovative triple. The 962 was a logical step, a company breaking ground by adhering to its founding principles. As a feedback- and-engineering exercise—arguably the chief purpose of range- topping supercars—the 918 is amazing, but you can't shake the idea that it will forever live in shade of the pantheon.

None of this is meant to knock it. We are, after all, discussing one of the best cars in the world. But one of the fascinating parts of the car industry is how the past influences modern choices. The thread between the 962 and 918 is obvious; the takeaway less so, at least for now.

But we live in a world with a Porsche engineering department that still thinks fast cars shouldn't be tamed for fools. Raise a glass.

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